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The other day here we noted that Republican nominee-to-be John McCain keeps referring to the country of Czechoslovakia, which hasn't existed since 1993.
Now, Sam Nunn, a veteran retired senator and an oft-mentioned Democratic vice presidential running mate with Barack Obama, is doing the same thing.
His reference to the former country, which split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, was the third mention of Czechoslovakia during campaigning this week. A former chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee who could know better, Nunn was on the campaign trail in Indiana with Obama.
"We in this country are about to, under this government, under the Bush administration, deploy [a] missile defense system in Poland and Czechoslovakia," Nunn said. For more details and a pretty funny video, check out our colleague Katie Fretland's item over on the Swamp.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Just six weeks after reluctantly surrendering to Barack Obama in the brutal 2008 Democratic primary race, Sen. Hillary Clinton has begun raising money for what she says is her 2012 New York Senate reelection campaign.
Clinton still faces about $20 million in debts from her unsuccessful presidential effort this year. As part of a so-called "unity drive," Obama has appealed to his supporters in recent weeks to give to Clinton to cover the costs that she incurred while raking him over the coals in a bare-knuckled bid to return to the White House. Some Obama backers have balked.
Clinton has also asked her donors to contribute to the massive general election fundraising effort of Obama, who changed his mind and has rejected federal funding. Some Clinton backers have balked.
Now, the New York Observer is reporting early this morning that the former first lady has sent out a special message to supporters who donated up to $2,300 to her anticipated 2008 general election campaign. Since there won't be one, she must return that money to the donors by Aug. 28, unless she gets their permission not to.
Her new appeal includes a photocopy of a handwritten note from Clinton that says: "Dear friend, your commitment has meant so much to me over the course of my presidential campaign. You were there for me when I needed you the most and I'll never forget it. I hope you'll help me continue to fight for the issues and causes we believe in by filling out the enclosed form in support of Friends of Hillary."
The form, once signed, allows Clinton staff to transfer the money from the 2008 general election fund into the 2012 senate reelection treasury, where it can earn four years' of interest. The report comes from Jason Horowitz of the Observer's Politiker blog.
If successful, this early fundraising, while unusual, can have the effect of scaring off any serious Republican challengers in New York. And help keep Clinton supporters in her camp and full of hope after the close call this primary season.
And, if memory serves, when Clinton had about $10 million left over from her successful 2006 Senate reelection campaign, she shifted those funds as starter cash over to her nascent presidential effort last year.
Hmmm. Not that any ambitious politician would think this far ahead. But if Obama was to, say, lose a close election in November to Clinton's close friend, John McCain, the new president would be 72 on Inauguration Day next Jan. 20.
That would make him really pretty old for anything other than maybe perhaps one term, which would leave things wide open in 2012 for, say, a former Arkansas first lady who happens to be only 60 right now. And might have an ample senate campaign fund suitable for transferring into a presidential fund.
But that's absolutely ridiculous to think about now. As is, of course, having three major Democratic fundraising campaigns underway at the same time.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Photo credit: Associated Press
That Barack Obama jog toward the political center now that he's won the Democratic nomination appears to have turned into a full-fledged dash today. And there's a lot of folks on the left side of his party that are unhappy.
But, to be Chicago kind of candid, whatcha gonna do about it?
Today, the freshman senator from Illinois voted in favor of the FISA bill that provides retroactive legal protection to cooperating telecom companies that helped the feds eavesdrop on overseas calls. Up until a few weeks ago -- let's see, that would be shortly after the last primaries settled the Democratic nomination and terminated what's-her-name's once frontrunning campaign -- Obama adamantly opposed the bill. "Unequivocally" was the word his people used.
"Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said last fall. In December, as ABC's Jake Tapper notes, Obama's office said: “Sen. Obama unequivocally opposes giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies and has cosponsored Sen. Dodd's efforts to remove that provision from the FISA bill."
In February, Obama voted for an amendment to carve the retroactive immunity out of the measure. And he said: "I am proud to stand with Sen. Dodd, Sen. Feingold and a grass-roots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty. There is no reason why telephone companies should be given blanket immunity to cover violations of the rights of the American people."
Let's see, those statements were all made during that endless Democratic primary season.
After June 4, Obama said: "It is a close call for me, but I think the current legislation with exclusivity provision that says that a president -- whether George Bush, myself or John McCain -- can’t make up rationales for getting around FISA court, can’t suggest that somehow that there is some law that stands above the laws passed by Congress in engaging in warrantless wiretaps."
Never mind that it's confusing. It's supposed to be. Yes, he's usually a real good talker. But he wanted to avoid providing a clear-cut quote for future use against himself. Bottom line, today Obama voted for the measure he has so long opposed. So he was against the bill before he was for the bill.
And guess what? His primary primary opponent, Hillary Clinton from the Empire State, the one who got ditched by much of the Democratic left in favor of this new guy from Illinois who had no visible warts, she voted against the bill. Talk about retroactive regret by some.
"It's ironic so far, I suppose," one commentor wrote on OpenLeft today, "that Clinton is of late a more reliable ally than Obama." Over at Wake up America they provided a detailed accounting of the excoriating of Obama by alleged supporters on the candidate's own website.
With his vote unnecessary for victory, Sen. McCain spent the day in Ohio, of all places, which just happens to be the state that Republicans do not win the White House without. If you get our drift.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Jesse Ventura, the former pro wrestler and sometime-actor who improbably won the governorship of Minnesota a decade ago, may again roil his state's political waters. Then again, he may not.
Ventura has been hinting for months that he might make an already closely watched Senate race  between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken a three-way affair; back in May, he told Larry King on CNN, "I'm weighing it right now."
He's still weighing it as Tuesday's deadline for filing approaches; indeed, he's talking about it more than ever, leading to speculation he'll take the leap.
Our friend Ted Johnson, who writes the "Wilshire & Washington" column for Variety, recently interviewed Ventura and wrote that "he sounded like a candidate, ready to needle his opponents at every turn. He mapped out a renegade campaign strategy in which he would raise money on the Internet yet not spend more than $1 million for his bid."
Johnson quoted Ventura as saying: "I will not spend more than I earn, and that gives me I think a million dollar cap, because the salary for a senator is $170,000" a year.
We were initially confused by Ventura's math, but he's apparently referring to what he would gross over a six-year term.
The buzz surrounding Ventura grew very loud today, following the broadcast on NPR of an interview he gave David Welna Sunday in a parking lot in Minnesota. He again talked as if he had decided to run, and even offered what presumably would be one of his main messages: "All you Minnesotans take a good hard look at all three of us. And you decide: If you were in a dark alley, which one of the three of us would you want with you?"
Ventura quickly clarified that his remarks were hypothetical, and that he'll continue to weigh his options until the filing deadline. "It will come down to whether I want to change my lifestyle and go to that lifestyle or not," he said.
The prospect of another political season enlivened by a Ventura candidacy geneerated much comment, including this post on The Swamp.
As we recently noted, current polling indicates Franken -- of "Saturday Night Live" fame -- would fall short in his bid to unseat Coleman. Who knows how Ventura would scramble the dynamics; his political persona is so idiosyncratic it seems, at first blush, hard to predict.
And this might be even harder to divine -- were he to run and win, would he bother to caucus with either party on Capitol Hill?
-- Don Frederick
This is a new Ticket experiment. We're going to try this from time to time until Nov. 4 with new ads from the presidential campaigns -- maybe even ads for other offices, if they're interesting.
But instead of us writing on what these television commercials are about, we're asking you to tell us and the thousands of other daily Ticket readers what they're about. Why waste time talking back to your television screen?
You, the voters, tell us right here right now what you see in them that you like, didn't know, didn't like, whatever. It's your turn to blog about the campaigns.
This one is from Sen. John McCain's campaign.
Tell us what it's about and what you think in the Comments below. And since this isn't a pep rally for or against anyone, try to be open-minded, regardless of whom you may be currently supporting. We'll have other candidate ads posted here in coming weeks.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Good thing America's dissatisfied voters took control of Congress away from that other crowd two years ago. Because since the new party took over, congressional approval ratings have plummeted to tie a historical low.
Say what?
Weren't the outs supposed to fix things on Capitol Hill once they became the ins? And controlled all the investigations? And the agenda? And the committees?
A new poll shows that the percentage of voters  who say Congress is doing an excellent or good job has fallen to single digits for the first time in the tracking history of Rasmussen Reports.
Nine percent say that.
Which is down from 11% in May.
Only 3% of independents say Congress is doing a good or excellent job, half the previous month's rating.
A majority of Americans (52%) say House and Senate members are doing a poor job, which ties the record high for that dubious rating.
A whopping 72% believe members of Congress are more interested in furthering their own careers than doing public good. And only 14 of every 100 Americans think senators or representatives are genuinely interested in helping real people.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of their public service.
The big unanswered question:
If such an overwhelming percentage of voters are so dissatisfied with the congressional work of a Democratic majority they elected just two years ago, a worse rating than even the scandal-plagued Republicans had in 2006, what does this do to the conventional wisdom that 2008 is a year for substantial gains by Democrats in both houses?
Will voters buy the argument that the 2006 majority led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid didn't work. So maybe another one will?
Do GOP members appear so dispirited they don't present a realistic alternative?
Or will dissatisfied voters, for once, turn on incumbents from both parties?
What do you think?
--Andrew Malcolm
As Barack Obama and John McCain take their sweet time settling on running-mate choices, one result is that the net cast in the inevitable guessing game gets wider and wider.
As The Times' Doyle McManus aptly put it in a recent overview on the plethora of vice-presidential prospects: "Never in modern memory have so many eminent people been mentioned for a job that has been compared -- unfavorably -- to a bucket of warm spit."
In the spirit of such speculation, veteran political journalist Paul West this weekend spotlighted two possibilities -- one for Obama, the other for McCain -- who definitely would be surprise picks.
For the Democrats, West offered up Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
In a definite understatement, West writes that Reed "isn't flashy, and he wouldn't upstage the star." But here's the core of the case he makes for the lawmaker with virtually no national profile: "He's a Catholic with working-class roots (his father was a school janitor) and could enhance the ticket's appeal to those swing voters. He has expertise on issues at the center of the campaign debate: economics and the housing crisis.
"More important, he would offset Obama's lack of national security experience. Reed, 58, has a reputation as a serious thinker and is a respected voice on defense matters. He's a West Point graduate and Army Ranger with views that are right in line with Obama's. He voted against the 2002 Iraq war resolution and became an early critic of the way the war was fought while working to increase the size of the Army."
For the Republicans, West goes one better in the obscurity department -- dropping the little-known name of Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. He notes: "On a personal level, Huntsman and McCain both have adopted children from Asia. (Huntsman's are from China and India; McCain's is from Bangladesh.) Their moderate-conservative political views are in sync, and Huntsman has gone out of his way to praise McCain's stance on immigration reform."
West's complete piece, in which he also says that Bill Clinton's 1992 selection of Al Gore "is widely regarded by strategists in both parties as the best vice-presidential pick in at least 20 years," can be read on The Swamp blog.
--Don Frederick
Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, a potentially endangered Republican in November's election, raised many an eyebrow recently with an ad that included an unexpected cameo.
"Who says Gordon Smith helped lead the fight for better gas mileage and a cleaner environment?" asks a narrator. "Barack Obama."
TV viewers in the Beaver state then saw a flash of Obama's face and his campaign Web site as the ad went on to say the two lawmakers had teamed up "and broke through a 20-year deadlock to pass new laws that increase gas mileage for automobiles."
 Despite Smith's effort to scramble the partisan divide, it's comforting to know that in some cases, the old rules still apply -- such as a conservative Republican from Texas invoking a tried and true symbol of California liberalism, Sen. Barbara Boxer, as a way to raise money.
Boxer did her part to rate such a mention. On the Web site for a political action committee she set up, she recently conducted an online "Choose a Challenger" contest. Participants were given a list of various Democrats challengers trying to win GOP-held Senate seats this year and asked to vote on which one should be singled out for fundraising help by the PAC.
Down in the Lone Star State, Democrat Rick Noriega launched an effort to stack the deck. As part of his longshot bid to topple GOP Sen. John Cornyn, he urged backers to cast ballots for him in Boxer's tourney; a win, he said in an e-mail, could funnel "tens of thousands of dollars" into his coffers.
Not surprisingly, the Cornyn camp got wind of this and sought, in turn, to use it for its own financial advantage.
A solicitation to potential donors notified them that Noriega "is enlisting California Liberal (sic) Barbara Boxer’s help to raise money. The note continued: "Barbara Boxer, the one who opposed Chief Justice Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court and verbally assaulted Justice Alito during his confirmation process."
"But it gets worse. You know what Senator Boxer is up to now? To quote her own website: 'I want you to know that I won't give up in our fight to stop the drilling…'
"Gas is approaching $4.10 a gallon with no end in sight and Rick Noriega is asking for help from Barbara Boxer, who is leading the charge to stop domestic drilling making us even more dependent on foreign oil?"
"While Rick Noriega is counting on Californians to help his campaign, John Cornyn is counting on Texans just like you."
Sounds like Cornyn would be loathe to get caught in the same elevator with Boxer.
But here's another side of Washington. Cornyn is the vice chair of the Senate Ethics Committee that Boxer heads. And about a week after the missive excoriating her, Cornyn's Capitol Hill office issued a release touting an amendment they were jointly offering to require members of Congress to publicly disclose their residential mortgages (a touchy topic these days in the Senate).
The release included both of their names in its headline, provided quotes from each promoting their mutual cause and offered nary a hint of discord between the two.
Noriega, by the way, triumphed in Boxer's contest (for the results, go here).
--Don Frederick
Power is perishable, and when politicians exit the stage, it often doesn't take long -- especially in Washington -- for their importance to be only vaguely recollected.
 So with the death today of former Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina at age 86, we offer some reminders of the central role -- for good, ill or a combination of both, depending on one's viewpoint -- he played in public policy and political discourse (The Times' obituary can be read here).
Back in the late 1990s, the Almanac of American Politics said flatly of Helms that "no American politician is more controversial, beloved in some quarters and hated in others...."
This, at a time when Bill Clinton was deep into his presidency.
First elected to his Senate seat in 1972, aided by Richard Nixon's landslide in that year's presidential election and the increasing GOP appeal to the South's conservative ethos, Helms at first was chiefly known for his staunch -- and often colorfully expressed -- opposition to abortion rights, gay rights and a raft of other liberal causes.
He truly became a figure to be reckoned with, however, through his tenure on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (he eventually became its chairman). As the political almanac put it, he used his seat "to conduct something like his own foreign policy." During Ronald Reagan's presidency and the administration of George H.W. Bush, Helms and a band of loyal aides "developed their own sources and attempted to manipulate State Department appointments to help the contras in Nicaragua and rightists in El Salvador."
Helms was revered on the right. In comments on MSNBC today, Pat Buchanan judged him "the second most important conservative of the second half of the 20th Century" (the first, of course, being Reagan).
And he was reviled on the left, perhaps never more so then during his 1990 reelection campaign when he faced a spirited challenge from an African-American, Harvey Gantt.
That race overshadowed all others in the nation that year, and it lives on due to the controversial -- many say race-baiting ads -- that Helms employed.
The best-known ad sought to tap into resentment against "quota" hiring practice by showing white hands crumpling a job rejection notice while a narrator intoned that the better qualified applicant had been bypassed for a minority hire.
Less well-known is a spot that berated Gantt for waging a "secret" campaign because he was advertising on black-owned radio stations.
Helms won the election, 53% to 47%, and then defeated Gantt by virtually the same margin in a rematch six years later.
As our friend Frank James notes in his posting on The Swamp, Helms "was more complicated on racial issues than the caricature he had with much of the public."
Still, some will see irony in the timing of Helms' passing -- just a few weeks before Barack Obama makes racial history when he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee.
-- Don Frederick
Photo credit: Newsmakers
Might David Vitter belong to that rare breed of politicians who survive the type of scandal that sink most others (see Spitzer, Eliot, and Fossella, Vito)?
Chances are we won't know for sure until 2010, when the Republican senator from Louisiana is up for re-election. But based on a new poll by the Baton Rouge-based Southern Media & Opinion Research firm, Vitter has reason for optimism that he will keep his job.
When we last left Vitter -- almost exactly a year ago -- he was confessing, vaguely, to a "very serious sin" that involved his association with a D.C.-based prostitution ring. Then a New Orleans-based prostitute alleged that she and the senator had once been especially good friends (a connection Vitter denied).
Perhaps the best-remembered moment stemming from the scandal occurred when Vitter held a news conference in Metairie, La., to try to put it behind him (fat chance) and was joined at the podium by his wife, Wendy -- whose pained expression said it all (he didn't look especially happy, either).
In Washington, Vitter has kept a mostly low profile since then. But he's kept going about his senatorial business and, in Louisiana, his standing appears about the same as it was before the commotion erupted.
The new survey of the state's voters found that 55% view him favorably, 38% unfavorably. In April of 2007, a poll by Southern Media put his numbers at 52% favorable, 32% unfavorable.
One of the firm's pollsters, Bernie Pinsonat, told us Vitter has benefited from a reservoir of goodwill he could draw upon. For instance, many voters well remember that as a state legislator several years ago, he led the charge for highly popular term limits.
Nor has he lost that sense of what the public wants.
Louisianans became incensed recently ...
Read more David Vitter seems to have rolled with the punch of last year's sex scandal »
Political -- and Batman -- junkies probably already know about Sen. Patrick Leahy's little infatuation with Bruce Wayne's alter ego, Batman. He loves the character, and all those colorful evil incarnates,  like the Riddler, the Penguin and the Joker. Leahy has even talked his way into cameo roles in Batman movies, and in "The Dark Knight," which opens July 18, Leahy gets himself roughed up by the Joker's goons. Bam! Pow! Ooof!
So strong is the Democratic Vermont senator's infatuation that he wrote the introduction for a 1992 book collecting some of the Batman comics, "The Dark Knight Archive," and has done voice-overs for childrens' Batman cartoons. And on July 12, Leahy will play host to a special premiere of "The Dark Knight" in that hot spot of Hollywood's elite, Montpelier, Vt. The proceeds will go to a local library that has named a wing after him. Leahy, that is, not Batman.
So as we head into the long Fourth of July weekend (that phrase is a journalism cue that it's a slow news day, at least at the moment), we wonder what other politicians might harbor secret infatuations with fictional crusaders, caped and otherwise? Or even better, what superhero might actually dwell beneath those dark (pant)suits?
Maybe John McCain in his, shall we say, crankier moments, as The Hulk? Barack Obama channeling The Flash? Hillary Clinton as Wonder Woman -- the first major female superhero? John Edwards as Batman's sidekick, Robin?
And they don't have to be the heroes. Go ahead and link politicians up with your favorite bad guys, too.
Can't wait to see what you all come up with for Ralph Nader and Dick Cheney.
-- Scott Martelle
Image: Warner Bros.
Joe Biden, the senator from Delaware and one of those vanquished by Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential race, remains a hot prospect in the vice presidential sweepstakes (something retired Gen. Wesley Clark probably can't claim).
The 65-year-old Biden, as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would bring the deep-seated experience in international matters that Obama lacks. Although Delaware and its 3 electoral voters almost assuredly are in the Democratic column, Biden could help his party's ticket in two nearby and crucial states. He's well-known in some parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, by virtue of having been in the public eye for so long.
But perhaps his biggest asset is his Roman Catholic faith; in the view of many political handicappers, an Obama/Biden ticket could make inroads with a bloc of voters that has been resistant so far to the presumptive presidential nominee.
There is one slight complication. Biden is up for reelection this November -- he's heavily favored to snare a seventh six-year term -- and in some states it is illegal to be on the ballot for two offices at once.
In Delaware, the issue is simply not addressed, state Commissioner of Elections Elaine Manlove recently told an NBC affiliate in New Jersey. "It's not that our law says he can't (run for Senate and vice president at the same time). It's that it doesn't say it at all. There's nothing in Delaware law that says he can't."
The National Journal's Hotline noted earlier today that if state officials were asked to weigh in on the issue, Biden might have a built-in advantage. Delaware's attorney general happens to be Beau Biden, one of the senator's sons.
Within the last 50 years, three vice presidential nominees -- all Democrats -- have simultaneously sought reelection to Senate seats: Lyndon Johnson of Texas in 1960, fellow Texan Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut in 2000.
Each won their Senate races, but only Johnson also was part of a winning national ticket (meaning he gave up his seat on Capitol Hill).
-- Don Frederick
Photo credit: Associated Press
Talk about being ahead of the curve...
Photographer Pete Souza began making Barack Obama the focus of his work back in early January 2005 -- on the day Obama was sworn in as a U.S. senator from Illinois, in fact.
Obama already was identified as a comer in Democratic politics but at that point, few anticipated how far and how quickly he would ascend. So Souza -- who takes a bipartisan approach to his craft; he served as the official White House photographer for Ronald Reagan-- was able to document much of Obama's path to the precipice of the Democratic presidential nomination without the impediments that now surround the candidate.
The result is a just-published photo-book, "The Rise of Barack Obama." More can be read about it and Souza in this post on The Swamp.
-- Don Frederick
"Star Wars" creator George Lucas was on Capitol Hill in Washington this week to testify on something or other and when there's no news to be heard, reporters start asking the silly questions.
They wanted him to liken modern politicians to his movie characters. Like, was Darth Vader based on Vice President Dick Cheney? Or something like that.
Anyway, Lucas, who's also responsible for harnessing the Force, played it cagey. Until he was asked if Sen. Barack Obama would be a Jedi knight.
Maybe the answer you think you know.
But over to Elizabeth Snead's Dish Rag blog you'll have to click to be sure.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Hillary Clinton refocused on her day job today, after lying low for more than two weeks since her widely acclaimed speech ceding the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama and, more to the point, after almost 18 months of being preoccupied with her White House quest.
 The senator from New York arrived at the Capitol via an SUV shortly after 1 p.m. EDT and, perhaps to help her adjust to the culture shock on having left the campaign trail, a crowd was on hand for the occasion. See video below.
It wasn't a large one -- perhaps 100 or so, according to The Times' Noam Levey, who was on the scene. And although some were supporters, a few were interns who had been told by supervisors to line the Capitol's steps to greet her. And others were simply a clutch of Washington's ubiquitous tourists.
They combined to give the defeated candidate a warm welcome, cheering and waving as she made her way into her workplace. "We missed you," shouted one woman.
And Clinton -- dressed in a bright turquoise suit much like the one she wore on the last day of the primary season on June 3 -- looked upbeat as she paused to shake hands. She made a point of asking some of the younger onlookers where they were from and thanking them for coming out to see her. She then disappeared inside the edifice, where she joined her Democratic colleagues for their weekly policy lunch in the Lyndon Baines Johnson room outside the Senate chamber.
Standing at the edge of the crowd before Clinton arrived, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana --an early and staunch backer of Clinton's presidential bid -- said he expected she now would move toward a leadership role in the Senate.
"I don't think she'll enter the witness protection program. ... She's not going to be an anonymous figure," Bayh said. "She has so much to contribute. ... I hope she'll embrace this opportunity, and I think she will. ... You can make a heck of a difference in the United States Senate."
Clinton probably can count on an extra dose of empathy from Bayh -- he briefly stuck his toe in the 2008 presidential waters before quickly withdrawing and casting his lot with her.
Indeed, the chamber is full of lawmakers with whom she can commiserate. Among the 99 other senators, 15 have run for president, to greater or lesser extents. **
That includes the two who are still at it, Obama and John McCain (one of whom, barring an unforeseen circumstance, will become the first sitting senator since John Kennedy in 1960 to win the office).
-- Don Frederick
Photo: Associated Press
** For true political junkies, the current senators -- aside from Clinton, Obama, McCain and Bayh -- who have sought the presidency are Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Joe Biden of Delaware, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Orrin Hatch of Utah, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Richard Lugar of Indiana and Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania.
As the first African American to secure a major-party presidential nomination, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has understandably been the subject of much analysis across the country that focuses on race.
But overlooked is another potential political first: Americans have never sent a Chicagoan to the White House.
And one intriguing question posed by the freshman Illino is senator's candidacy is whether they are ready now.
For all his talk elsewhere about change and his national image as a fervent reformer, Obama on the contrary remains fundamentally a product of a Chicago and Illinois political culture renowned for corruption and filled with curious characters who range from felonious to just outrageous.
Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, Obama's political mentor in the state capital of Springfield, is about as old-school as they come. Just last month, the Chicago Democrat publicly ridiculed an attempt to block another pay raise for state legislators by sarcastically declaring: "I've got to get me some food stamps."
Obama's stable of political friends is broadly populated with others like Jones and the recently convicted Tony Rezko. Revealingly, whenever the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has dabbled in Windy City and Cook County politics in recent years, he has frequently failed to come down on the side of political progressives and reformers.
This little-known side of Obama's political life may well surprise many across the country who see in the well-spoken candidate an entirely different person. Bob Secter and John McCormick have the full story at the Swamp.
--Andrew Malcolm
Photo credit: Associated Press
In this episode of our ongoing conversation with author Matt Welch, he discusses the role of religion in Sen. John McCain's life and politics.
McCain's regrets about going too far in his 2000 remarks about the religious right, his courting of the religious right within the Republican Party this election season and the stark differences between the roles of Rev. Wright in Barack Obama's life and Rev. Hagee in the McCain campaign.
Previous chapters in our Welch chat about his book, "McCain: The Myth of a Maverick," are here for Part I, here for Part II, here for Part III, here for Part IV and here for Part V. Samples of Welch's print writing in his former Times career are available here.
The remaining two episodes of our conversation will be published on The Ticket in the next day or so.
--Andrew Malcolm
In this episode, Part IV of our conversation with former Times writer Matt Welch on his new book on Sen. John McCain, we asked Matt what was the biggest surprise he came across in the course of his lengthy book research on the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
Hint: His answer had something to do with McCain's Vietnam War experiences or, rather, getting past them and helping some countrymen do the same.
Part I of our video chat is available here. Part II is available here. And Part III is available here. To read some of Matt's previous written work for The Times, click here.
The remaining four videotaped episodes of our Welch conversation will be published in coming days exclusively here on The Ticket.
-- Andrew Malcolm
ABC's "This Week": John McCain supporter Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas); Barack Obama supporter Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.); Red Cavaney, American Petroleum Institute; and Jeffrey Sachs, the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Panel: Donna Brazile, Matthew Dowd, Cokie Roberts, Sam Donaldson.
CBS' "Face the Nation": McCain advisor Carly Fiorina; Obama supporter Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.); John Harris, Politico.
CNN's "Late Edition": The economy: Obama supporter Gov. Richardson and McCain supporter Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.). Offshore oil, the economy: Obama supporter Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) and McCain supporter Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.). The economy: Obama advisor former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and McCain advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin. The hunt for Osama Bin Laden; Iraq: Pakistani journalist-author Ahmed Rashid ("Descent Into Chaos") and Peter Bergen. Panel: Gloria Borger, Amy Walter, Ed Henry.
"Fox News Sunday": Obama advisor former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and McCain supporter former Gov. Tom Ridge (R-Pa.). Kathleen Rogers, Earth Day Foundation. Panel: Brit Hume, Nina Easton, Bill Kristol, Juan Williams.
"Meet the Press": Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.). Panel: John Harwood, Andrea Mitchell. Moderator: Brian Williams.
--Andrew Malcolm
Photo credit: Babson College
This is Part III of The Ticket's new series of video chats with people in or around politics. We're talking with Matt Welch, a former Times writer whose previous Times work can be read here.
His new book is on Sen. John McCain, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party. It's not a biography so much as an exploration of the independent persona we've all come to know.
Today, Welch describes how he discovered the inner McCain and his almost imperialistic views of American foreign policy, which grew from his family's long involvement in the Navy and his own world view, once it had taken many years to heal from the trauma of the Vietnam War and McCain's nearly six-year incarceration and torture.
Part I of our conversation is available here. Part II is available here. The other five remaining segments will appear on The Ticket in coming days.
--Andrew Malcolm
This is Part II of The Ticket's first video chat series, an eight-part conversation with author Matt Welch on his new book, "John McCain: The Myth of a Maverick."
The book is not a biography but an exploration of the McCain persona, an intriguing combination of independence, military discipline and rebellion, with a strong whiff of bad boy. In this video episode Welch, a former L.A. Times writer, describes how he came to discover much about McCain through the serial confessions the senator makes about himself throughout his own books. And what that revealed about the Republican nominee's personal way of thinking.
Part I of this conversation with Welch can be seen by clicking here. Other parts will be published on The Ticket in coming days.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Our co-blogger over on the Technology blog, Jim Puzzanghera, has dug up an interesting new device in Washington -- yes, there are some. Or can be.
It seems the Sunlight Foundation, which seeks to explain the workings of Congress -- good luck with that one, too -- has come up with some way to pore through all of the blather uttered on the floors of the Senate and House every day.
And then their magic program distills it all down into one word each day.
We'd have some nominees here on The Ticket, but we're not allowed to publish those. Tuesday's Sunlight Foundation distilled word was, for instance, "health."
Jim explains how this works and provides links over here.
--Andrew Malcolm
This is the first in a series of series of conversations with people in politics. We'll be chatting on camera with politicians, staffers, strategists, people formerly in politics, writers of politics, all in our continuing effort to get inside politics for Ticket readers.
This video segment is the first of eight with Matt Welch, the author of "John McCain: The Myth of a Maverick," not a biography but a sort of how-to guide to understanding this intriguing, independent, straight-talking, blunt-talking former fighter pilot who will later this summer be handed the presidential nomination for the Republican Party.
Is he what he seems?
In this segment we talk with Matt, a former Times writer, about the origins of the book and the, shall we say, lack of cooperation he encountered from the Arizona senator's camp.
The Ticket will publish other segments in coming days, eight altogether, exploring what Welch discovered about the man from his life, his writings and his friends.
If you have any questions for the author after viewing the segments, leave them in the comments section and we'll get answers from him for another item later.
--Andrew Malcolm
First, last fall, there were all kinds of people, a number of them Ron Paul supporters, dashing from Internet site to Internet site suggesting that John McCain could not serve as president of the United States.
That was because he was born outside the United States and, therefore, not native-born, as presidents must be constitutionally.
McCain was, in fact, born in a U.S. military hospital in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father was serving in the Navy. That was, in fact, American-controlled territory at the time.
More importantly, his parents were both American citizens, so he could have been born on Mars and still been an American at birth. And a sense of the Senate resolution took care of any lingering doubts.
Now come the rumors about Barack Obama's birthplace, that he was really born in his father's native Kenya, so like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was born in Austria, he can't become a U.S. president.
Same rule would apply as for McCain. Obama's mother was an American. So is her son.
The Obama campaign has provided at The Ticket's request what it says is a copy of the Illinois senator's official birth certificate, reproduced here, showing he was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, at 7:24 p.m., which means he was late for dinner, just like a politician. Click on the photo to enlarge for reading.
Now, about the citizenship of all those people planting these rumors.
(UPDATE: In reaction to some of the comments left below challenging the veracity of the document, Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesman, sent the following reaction to The Ticket: "I can confirm that that is Sen. Obama's birth certificate.")
--Andrew Malcolm
On this, the first anniversary of our Top of the Ticket blog, we are reminded of the mercurial, unpredictable nature of U.S. politics -- part of what makes what we do so fascinating.
Our goal -- one of us on the East Coast and the other on the far more important or at least less humid West Coast -- was to write about Campaign '08 virtually around the clock.
Our second-ever posting, 12 months ago today, previewed an upcoming L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll; later in the day, we detailed the results of the nationwide survey. The findings were in line with other polls of the time.
In the Republican presidential race, which then seemed the most likely to last deep into the primary season, Rudy Giuliani was perched in first place. His lead wasn't overwhelming, but it was strong enough that he appeared certain to remain a major contender.
His liberal record on social issues loomed as an obvious liability within his party, but his tough-on-terrorism message was attracting substantial support from moderates and GOP-leaning independents.
His major headache among rivals last June was an as-yet-undeclared candidate who was riding a wave as the great conservative hope -- Fred Thompson. He ran a strong second in the poll.
Lagging far behind were John McCain and Mitt Romney, each barely with double-digit support. In our preview posting, we were especially scornful of McCain, noting sarcastically (and foolishly, as it turned out) that in the poll, he found himself "in heated competition with the 'Don't Know' category."
Meriting no mention from us was Mike Huckabee, one of several back-of-the-pack candidates barely earning any support across the country.
The Democratic race, at that point, seemed so much more cut-and-dried.
Hillary Clinton was the clear front-runner; Barack Obama was just as clearly ...
Read more Top of the Ticket, the start of Year Two »
It's one of those things that sneaks up on you in politics, a sense of things happening not quite as you expected. It started in April when our Times colleague Louise Roug called with a quote from Sen. Hillary Clinton.
She'd shaken hands at a factory gate in Toledo, Ohio, then before flying to Texas held a media availability where she said: "Sen. McCain brings a lifetime of experience to the campaign. I bring a lifetime of experience. And Sen. Obama brings a speech he gave in 2002."
A pretty good zinger that got Clinton into the day's | |
